


This and this and this

by porphyrin



Category: Original Work, The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 09:11:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6073549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/porphyrin/pseuds/porphyrin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>three things + 1</p>
            </blockquote>





	This and this and this

 

 

\------------------

**1\. SECRETS**

I spun around nervously on his office chair. “Nice room.” I took it in, the push-board of photos and cards, a wooden dresser with half shut drawers, a wall next to his bed littered with trophies and plaques from track meets.

“What the fuck? Nice room? You’re literally so awkward.”

I ignored him and started leafing through the drawer in his desk. I picked out a birthday card and started reading it, before he promptly snatched it out my fingers.

“Want to see my secret stash?” Achilles grabbed a book from his shelf, a title that I didn’t recognize. He opened the cover, and revealed pre-carved a hollow filled with condoms. He had small hiding spots everywhere in his room, to keep his mother from finding any contraband items. Achilles, it seemed, had an infinite supply of secrets. He was nothing if not enigmatic, the mere shape of a person crafted from smoke and mirrors. More than the secrets themselves, he loved dangling them in front of people (me). I always humored him, nagging him for the secrets that he desperately wanted to share.

\------------------

**2\. KISSES**

***

The first time, it was in the abandoned handicap dressing room of a department store. It had taken five minutes for us to find the right angle, with the awkward first-kiss hesitance heavy in the air. It was not his first kiss (he told me), but I could easily have imagined it was. I felt his lips for one moment, and suddenly burst out laughing. He pulled back, frowning. “What is it?”

“Your lips are so…squishy," I said. He wrinkled his nose at that. “Make them firmer,” I demanded.

“What?”

**

The second time, I was kissing him on his bed. His mother was napping in the room next door. “She’s a heavy sleeper,” he said. It was likely another one of his lies, but I went along with it. He wrapped his hands around my back, and I had one hand clasped behind his neck, the other entwined in his hair. Sharpened by experience, I knew this time to _not_ rip out his tongue with my teeth.  As he moved up for air, I tightened my hold on his neck and pulled him back down. After another minute, he broke away. “Wait, wait. Hold up. Just for… instant feedback, Patroclus…that was really hot.” He leaned back down and kissed the grin off my face.  

*

The last time, I was leaving his house. He was wearing pajamas, loosely dressed and hair still damp. I put on my shoes. Achilles leaned in to kiss me on the mouth, but I aimed for his cheek instead. I wasn’t sure why I did that, but I quickly hurried out the door and didn’t look back.

“Fun party?” my mother asked, as I climbed into the passenger seat.

“Yeah.” I felt strangely guilty.

\-----------------

**3\. DRUGS**

“You want some?”

I glanced warily at the apparatus.

Achilles rolled his eyes and answered the unspoken question with self-confident eloquence. “Jesus Christ, it’s not like I’m offering you _crack_. Most people use it for an oral fixation thing-- there’s pretty much no health risk. They’re just flavored liquids. And some people put nicotine in them, I guess.”

I continued staring at it.

“Okay, fine, this one has nicotine in it. Are you sure you don’t want some?”

I shook my head and waved my hand through the air. “It smells weird. You know, I’m not gonna kiss you if your breath smells gross.” Achilles’s eyes glinted and he leaned over to blow a puff of smoke in my face. I rolled the chair back, determined not to breathe it in. I couldn’t help but notice how pretty it looked, a tiny pink cloud floating in the room. I almost didn’t want it to dissipate.

\-----------------

**4\. SONG**

I didn’t want to tell him. He was sure to indict them as pop garbage, and I’d probably lose a bit of his respect for taking any pleasure at all in Ke$ha music. So I flipped the question on him; Achilles loved talking about himself. He loved talking in general. He showed me a few weird electric technobob songs, of which I wasn’t particularly fond of. I listened intently though, trying to understand them and maybe understand him. There was only one that stuck with me. 

It was a simple piano arrangement, haunting with the honesty of the lyrics. The song rose from a gentle lament to a screaming, furious, grieving sob, and it pierced me in the throat.

 _anchors away!_  
_five hundred yesterdays_  
_before you took your breath away._  
  
_not a lot to say_  
_nothing much to do_  
_there is a part of you_  
_in every of the ones you knew_  
_one of whom forever blue_  
_i only wish you knew_  
_that the gun that failed to fire beforehand_  
_tried to tell you nothing new_


End file.
